UPDATE 3-Blasts at Tanzania military depot kill 20

Defence Minister Hussein Mwinyi told Reuters the explosions
had stopped but officials had yet to determine the cause.

Some 23 munitions depots, a secondary school and two houses
were razed in the chain of explosions at the Gongo la Mboto
military base in Ilala district.

Tanzania's Civil Aviation Authority told Reuters the main
Dar es Salaam International Airport, located about 10 km from
the blast site, re-opened around lunchtime.

Aviation officials said there was no damage reported there
or at the aiport on the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, one
of Tanzania's leading tourist destinations, which was
temporarily closed overnight.

The blasts scattered debris across densely populated
neighbourhoods several kilometres (miles) from the military
base.

"My neighbour's house was struck by debris from a rocket
propelled grenade. Luckily, no one was injured because we were
told to evacuate our homes," said Hassan Kondo, a resident of
the Kivule area on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.

Army officials said they were planning controlled
detonations of unexploded bombs later on Thursday afternoon.

"We urge members of the public to be careful not to touch
any debris or unexploded bombs at their areas. Lieutenant
General Abdulrahman Shimbo, chief of staff of Tanzania's armed
forces, told reporters.

"We have sent out teams to carefully retrieve these
explosives," he said.

A similar explosion in 2009 at another military base in Dar
es Salaam killed at least 26 people and wounded more than 700.

(Additional reporting by Nicholaus Mtenga in Dar es Salaam
and Wangui Kanina in Nairobi; Editing by George Obulutsa)